In a close 5-4 decision early Tuesday, the Cambridge City Council approved a controversial move to push back the deadline for finishing the city’s bike lane network, despite nearly 300 residents urging them not to.
Mayor E. Denise Simmons along with Councilors Paul F. Toner, Joan F. Pickett, Ayesha M. Wilson, and Patty M. Nolan ’80 supported the plan, which extends the deadline for completing 25 miles of separated bike lanes from May 1, 2026 to November 1, 2027 under the Cycling Safety Ordinance.
The vote wrapped up a long and intense meeting that started at 5:30 p. m. Monday and ran almost seven hours – most of which was devoted to public comments. Although there were other items on the agenda, the Council decided to pause and continue those discussions at 10 a. m. Tuesday.
Nolan, who held the deciding vote, said this delay doesn’t mean stopping or banning installations but instead gives city staff more time to carefully plan around possible traffic disruptions and impacts on small businesses.
She also spoke directly to the mostly bike lane supporters in attendance-both in person and online-who had come out strongly against postponing.
“Those of us who want a bike lane network across the city have basically won,” she said. “We must never lose sight of that.”
The policy was first brought up in an early April meeting and highlights deep divisions among locals about building separated bike lanes.
Bicycle advocates say these lanes are necessary because of high rates of traffic accidents affecting cyclists, framing it as an urgent safety issue; meanwhile opponents worry about how bike lanes could hurt small businesses – some even filed lawsuits twice trying to block their installation.
The Council ordered an economic impact study on changes made by the Cycling Safety Ordinance-a law passed in 2020 requiring these bike lanes-but results released in February didn’t clearly show any effects one way or another, so some Councilors wanted more time to gather data before moving forward.
At Monday’s meeting they voted down a softer alternative put forth by four opposing councilors-Burhan Azeem, Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, Sumbul Siddiqui, and Vice Mayor Marc C. Mc Govern.
This compromise idea would have split construction on Broadway and Cambridge Street into two phases: half done by 2025 then finishing up by 2026 without pushing back deadlines overall.
Sobrinho-Wheeler bikes as his main way around town and argued that delaying installation would only lead to more crashes – sharing he himself was involved in one accident recently.
“I know it’s going to lead to more stories like mine and the folks in public comment: more lost teeth, more broken bones, more ambulance rides, more potential fatalities,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.
“There just aren’t a lot of things that come before the Council where you can say, ‘this has the potential to save a life,’ and this is one of them,” he added. “I don’t know how I vote for something that could potentially cause a life to be lost.”
The proposal also faced opposition from State Representative Mike L. Connolly who urged rejection on social media before the meeting began.
“I hope the Cambridge City Council allows the cycling safety ordinance to move forward on schedule,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “We’ve made so much progress on bike infrastructure in recent years – let keep it up!”
Toner defended extending the deadline saying it offers needed flexibility for staff handling implementation.
“Everybody keeps talking about this as a delay,” Toner said. “What we proposed was nothing more than extension up to 2027.”</h
“We never called for a ban. We never called for a delay. We were asking for an extension of time to do this right,” he added.
The lengthy public comment period saw many residents highlight how many bike crashes happen here-and stressed that protected lanes should go in quickly for everyone’s safety. Austin Ledzian mentioned there were already 65 crashes reported just along Cambridge Street since 2021 alone.
“If the bike lanes are delayed, there’s a nonzero chance that one of us is going to be hit by a car and killed,” he said bluntly. “And it will not be the biker’s fault or the driver’s fault, but it will be the fault of inadequate infrastructure.”
A few commenters sided with those worried about economic harm from bike lanes but others pointed out cyclists often support local shops better than drivers do.
“People like us who don’t own cars are more likely to support local businesses because we can’t drive out-of-town stores like Costco or Home Depot,” said Irene Kang from Cambridge. “We go everywhere nearby-we shop locally all over town.”
Pickett-once chairwoman at Cambridge Streets for All (a group which sued twice over these laws)-said giving extra time helps ease concerns small business owners have when parking spots get removed due to new lanes going in.
“We now have a potential solution that is going to help smooth the transition by allowing zoning changes before removing parking caused by installing bike lanes,” she explained.
But Mc Govern opposed delaying citing risks it creates around public safety.
He told how his son was hit by someone opening their car door just blocks away from where cyclist Amanda Phillips died after her crash back in 2016.
“He too fell into street traffic but luckily no truck came along at that moment,” Mc Govern recalled.
“People’s safety shouldn’t depend on luck.”
“I believe that bike lanes are necessary,” he continued. “We offered an alternative plan meant as win-win but it didn’t pass so sadly some feel victorious while others feel defeated.”
Correction: April 30, 2024
An earlier version mistakenly credited several quotes wrongly; they belong actually to Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler rather than Burhan Azeem.
-Staff writer Ayumi Nagatomi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @ayumi_nagatomi.
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